IFFI Jury Head Sujoy Ghosh Resigns After S Durga, Nude Dropped from Festival

Days after two films - Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga and Ravi Jadhav’s Nude - were left out of the 48th International Film Festival (IFFI), the fest's jury chairman Sujoy Ghosh has resigned from the post.

Ghosh, who has directed films such as Kahaani, Ahalya and Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh, confirmed the news of his resignation to News18 but refused to say anything more.

The final list released by the Information and Broadcasting ministry on November 9 had 26 feature and 16 non-feature films for the Indian Panorama section of IFFI, which is scheduled to be held from November 20 to 28 in Goa.

Soon after the announcement, Apurva Asrani, one of the jury members, took to Twitter to share: “Sexy Durga & Nude are among the best of contemporary cinema. They both present a powerful and empathetic portrait of women of today’s India. (sic)”

Nude and S Durga were apparently recommended for Indian Panorama section by the 13-member jury headed by Ghosh but was later left out of the ministry's list.

While, Ravi’s directorial deals with the struggle of a woman as she survives in a city like Mumbai as a nude model, Sasidharan’s film depicts the intimidating environment a woman has to traverse when she steps out of her comfort zone.

Shocked by the decision, Ravi had earlier told News18.com, “I thought it was selected. But then when I read the newspaper in the morning I was very disappointed. Because I personally feel that once the jury decides something that’s their ultimate decision. After that if the ministry revisits it that’s fine but it has to at least inform the jury.”

Sasidharan, on the other hand, said that he clearly anticipated this was going to happen. “They had a problem with my film’s title so I changed it to S Durga. The controversy should have ended there. Why are they dragging it now? Basically, they have a problem with my film’s content,” he told News18.com.